Wednesday, 7 September 2011

Visiting Cardiff Castle

Cardiff Castle was well worth the visit, the entrance fee was 11 pounds each for a regular ticket but worth every penny compared to a lot of other attractions I've visited in the UK and this is what we found.

We'd only been in Wales a few hours but we were heading home the next day and so we wanted to enjoy all we could of the city during our flying visit. It was a Saturday afternoon and we had found ourselves having a drink outside the walls of this gem of a castle.

Cardiff Castle is a Norman Castle built on a site of Roman history, developed into a palace by some wealthy Victorians and a castle whose exterior walls were utilised in World War II as an air raid shelter. The Castle is owned by Cardiff Council and is a truly fine example of an awesome inner city tourist attraction which is keeping it's history alive. That's a brief summary but there is obviously a lot more to it than that. Our visit lasted a couple of hours and we saw most of the site, my favourite part was the walk through the walls that were used as air raid shelters and the view from the top of the keep of the Norman Castle and the amazing decorations inside the Victorian palace.

I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't been so if you're visiting Cardiff and haven't yet taken it in, click away now, but the best way to describe what your missing is with a few photos. By the way here is a link to the opening times and prices etc in case any of this wets your appetite (and no, like anything else, I'm not being paid to advertise, it just impressed me that much I had to share).

Here are some of the scenes you might see:

The grounds of the castle.

The view out of an embrasure of the keep.

Stained Glass in the Mansion.

The ornate ceiling of the Victorian Mansion's Arab Room.

Mootilary madness.

A web of history.

And a bit of modern history with a walk within the walls.

And the view from the top of the keep looking out over the centre of Cardiff.